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Sonic is the fastest character in the game, in regards to movement speed (fastest dash speed, sixth fastest air speed, and very fast rolls). However, only about half of his moveset has speed to match, none of them being KO moves. Sonic's relatively small hitboxes and lack of a projectile (excluding his Spring jump which can only be used in the air, travels downward, and can be used by opponents if used on the ground) mean that he must stay close to the opponent in order to attack, but his aforementioned speed mitigates this problem. His ability to spinshot (holding Spin Dash and releasing as one pushes the C-Stick downwards) allows him to quickly bypass the effects of most projectile campers, and his side special can clank and cancel out the effects of certain projectiles. His tremendous running speed, his Spin Charge and Spring Jump and specials, and down air give him excellent follow up ability on practically every character.

Even though Sonic can easily rack up damage, he arguably has the hardest time landing a KO move, as all of his KO moves are unreliable, he has no guaranteed setups to them, and he lacks an early KO move. Sonic has only four ways to reliably KO the opponent (back and up aerial, and side/down smash), all of which have weaknesses that prevent them from being reliable KO moves. All of Sonic's smash attacks have start-up time too slow to be reliable finishers.

Sonic is one of the more difficult characters to gimp in the game, given his tremendous vertical recovery, as well as his theoretically limitless horizontal recovery (Homing Attack) should an opponent be off the stage with him. Sonic has the ability to wall jump, however; should an opponent be in place at all, invincible or not, Sonic will not have enough time to both attack and successfully grab the edge. Sonic also has surprisingly good survivability despite being a middleweight by nature. His down and side specials serve as excellent momentum canceling attacks, which, when coupled with his ability to recover, can allow him to survive until very high percentages, although they are still incomparable to the survivability of characters heavier than him.

Sonic's attacks are primarily offensive in nature, and his air game and air speed are good enough to accommodate attacking in the sky as well. Sonic can remain in the air indefinitely with careful use of his neutral special, Homing Attack, and with proper placement can either stage spike or gimp in this manner. Stage spiking in general is an excellent offensive strategy for Sonic; by running off the edge and immediately using back air, many characters or opponents who focus on ledge-camping (such as Pit) can be caught off guard for either a KO or a tactical advantage. Sonic's speedy and long-lasting dash attack is another move that can catch opponents unexpectedly, and its traveling distance usually prevents significant retaliation, such as shield-grabbing.

Sonic has good punishment options. Many of Sonic's moves use the same spinning ball animation, making him a very difficult character to predict. Unlike some characters however, practice is required to fully unlock Sonic's punishment potential. Sonic has one of the best shields in the game, because of how quickly it pops out and the multiple ways he can go into it. Sonic can cancel any of his Spin Dashes/Charges into a shield, Spin Dash from the ground, and Spin Charge from the air. This allows Sonic to "fake-out" his opponents, causing them to make hasty moves on which Sonic can capitalize on. When an opponent goes into their knock down animation, Sonic's superior punishment comes into play. By moving closer to the opponent then stopping just outside their range, Sonic has the edge. Because of his speed, if they roll towards Sonic, away from Sonic or use their getup attack, Sonic can grab them as they finish their move. Sonic is surprisingly easy to grab out of his attacks, because many of his moves launch him straight at opponents, only to have Sonic finish the move next to the opponent.

Mastering Sonic's running game is crucial to Sonic's ability to perform at higher levels, and is one of the factors that makes him so difficult to play competitively. Sonic users take advantage of a variety of dash or dash-related techniques that are seldom used by other characters. Dash-dancing is much less useful in Brawl than it was in Melee, but it can be extremely useful for mindgames in Sonic's gameplay, such as by running in one direction and then quickly turning the other way around to bait an opponent or catch him/her off-guard. It is often regarded by Sonic players that it is better to run away from the opponent and run back than to use roll-dodges to avoid opponent. This allows the player to avoid damage, not be as easily punished, have more control over their actions, and be able to punish their opponent's attacks. Dash-dance pivots (consisting of fox-trotting away from the opponent, then quickly dash-dancing backwards) are particularly effective for this, as they can cause almost immediate turnarounds and then grabs can then be used to punish opponents.

Sonic's matchups are difficult to define, as they vary greatly from player to player, possibly moreso than for any other character. Sonic players to this day find it difficult to agree on which matchups are Sonic's worst. Depending on the play-style of the Sonic, he can have a decent matchup against almost any character in the game, even at competitive levels. Because of his prowess for mindgaming and switching up tactics, as well as the inherent strengths and weaknesses to each style of play, some Sonic mains argue that Sonic has no truly disadvantageous matchups as a character, and that his matchups are much more heavily influenced by playstyle than his actual attributes. However, most Sonic mains will agree that he does not have many, if any, truly advantageous matchups.

There is a total of 176 Characters in this game.There is a total of 26 Characters for DLC.Note: Diance is a bonus DLC, since the move Diance and the Cocoon of Destruction Movie is coming on November 8th, 2014.